World Bank expands footprint in city, adds 70k sqft back office space

CHENNAI: Multilateral lender World Bank is expanding its footprint in Chennai and has signed up for additional space of nearly 70,000sqft. World Bank set up its back office operations in Chennai in 2001 in a small space in Raheja Towers on Anna Salai. It was soon allocated land in Taramani in 2002 and set up a nearly 1.5 lakh sqft centre. Last year, the bank expanded its operations further in SP Infocity . With this deal for additional space, it will have nearly 2.7 lakh sqft of space in Chennai. The lender has only one operation outside of Wash ington, which is in Chennai.

All international back office operations of the World Bank is centralized and performed in Chennai. The Chennai office undertakes accounting and related functions for the bank's nearly 150 offices. “World Bank signed up for nearly 70,000 sqft additional space in SP Infocity in Perungudi a few weeks ago,“ sources said. This is its second office space in the same location, taking its cumulative space in Perungudi to nearly 1.2 lakh square feet. The Taramani campus is spread across 3.5 acres, which was allotted by the Tamil Nadu government, and has a built-up space of nearly 1.5 lakh sqft, housing more than 500 employees. E-mails sent to World Bank went unanswered. Chennai is the most favoured destination for financial services back offices. A home to Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup, Barclays, among others,nearly one lakh techies work in these back offices. “Chennai is the ideal destination for BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) with its inherent advantages of right availability of talent across finance, engineering, telecom and healthcare. The back office segment is growing rapidly,“ said K Purushothaman,VP NASSCOM.